Why Is CAA Doing Market Research On Michael Jackson's Death?

Monolithic agency CAA is in all kinds of cookie jars, taking percentages of all kinds of famous cookies' salaries. But did you know about their market research firm...that's crowdsourcing answers on Michael Jackson's death the night after it happened?

Ominously named The Intelligence Group, CAA's market research subsidiary "builds creative solutions for (their) clients." But their "best known division" is Youth Intelligence. According to their language they're the "premier research group focused on Gen X and Gen Y (ages 14 to 39)," to all of which I say: nice demos.

But: do the higher ups at CAA know that the swarmy pollsters Youth Intelligence put a poll out in the field only a day after Michael Jackson's death, looking to do focus group work on Jackson's demise? The email:

The passing of Michael Jackson was a crazy surprise, and has left many of us truly saddened. He was a pretty incredible artist whose influence on pop culture is immeasurable. Because the impact of his music, his fashion, and his talents was felt by so many around the world, we're very much interested in your reaction to his passing.

What does Michael Jackson mean to you?
What kind of impact did he have on your life?
Are you doing anything to memorialize him? If so, what?

It would be awesome if you could send us your thoughts by Sunday night - and thank you for sharing.

The Intelligence Group

Awesome, indeed. We received this email late Friday night; I contacted The Intelligence Group for comment, they have yet to get back to me.

On that note, we've got three questions for The Intelligence Group:

1. Aren't the results of this research ultimately going to be swayed and too varied due to the intense newsdump that's taken place over the weekend to be of any substantial use?

2. Market research one day after Jackson died, with the body still warm, and someone's looking for answers that will eventually lead them to build a "creative solution" somewhere?